Single-atom masers

First, let s look at what current lasers and masers do. Lasers vary in size from single atoms, or submicroscopic size, to lasers as big as tall buildings. Well, the single atoms in small lasers produce fantastically small amounts of power - let s say, 10 16 watts. The big ones have produced as much as 10+16 watts - that is, ten million billion watts, more than we have from any other kind of source. Now, that lasts for a short time, because it would be too expensive to have it on all the time, of course. Nevertheless, it s very powerful, and that great power produces an intensity which allows us to study and to understand new states of matter with very high energy concentration. 

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